TURNERS FALLS — The Rendezvous restaurant has closed for the winter season, expecting to reopen in early March. Its last day was Wednesday.
“It really comes down to numbers,” said co-owner Mark Wisnewski. “We’re spending more and we’re taking in less. It’s just hard to keep going on that route.”
He and co-owners Chris Janke and Emily Brewster have been constantly re-evaluating the restaurant’s situation since the pandemic began. Now, Wisnewski said, the prospects for the winter season are so poor that the restaurant would lose more money by staying open than by closing for the next three months.
“We’ve had weekly discussions about what we’re going to do. It’s been an ever-changing scenario,” he said. “What went into the discussion in the end was, ‘What is the way that we come out of the virus still in business?’”
The Rendezvous was one of the first local restaurants to reopen after the initial business shutdown of March. In May, while Montague was creating its policies for allowing local businesses to reopen, Janke and Wisnewski both spoke publicly in Selectboard meetings, urging the town to move quickly.
“We considered putting plywood over the windows,” Janke said at the time. “We’re trying not to do that.”
By June, The Rendezvous seemed to be running a relatively swift business. They had invested in outdoor furniture that they hadn’t needed before, and had arranged with the town to use part of the adjacent municipal parking lot for seating space.
But even at the restaurant’s busiest, Wisnewski said, business during the pandemic has never come close to normal, sustainable levels.
Normally, the restaurant would fill to its legal capacity of 94 people for a solid two or three hours every Friday and Saturday night. Now, its capacity is 70, and it doesn’t even fill half of that, Wisnewski explained.
As the weather has changed, outdoor dining is not the draw that it was in the summer. The Rendezvous has largely moved its operations indoors, but Wisnewski said business has still continued to slow down.
Inside, plastic barriers divide the restaurant into cubicles and corridors. Booths are walled off from one another. A transparent shield hangs over the bar like a curtain to keep customers separate from the bartender.
“It’s clumsy. It doesn’t feel good,” he said. “You walk in and it feels like some sort of boy in the bubble situation. I don’t think people like it. Even if you’re sort of comfortable in here, it’s a constant reminder of the danger you’re in.”
Not only is business slower, but the pandemic has necessitated new investments, like the outdoor furniture, the plastic shields and air filters.
The Rendezvous got a grant through the federal Paycheck Protection Program in the spring, which allowed it to continue paying employees while closed. But that money couldn’t be used for capital improvements — not even improvements that were necessary to operate during the pandemic. Other business grants that have been available locally have had similar restrictions.
Because of the costs, The Rendezvous has foregone some upgrades that would have made business smoother in the pandemic. A new software system would have handled takeout orders better, for example, Wisnewski said.
“But who can spend another $10,000 when you’re already in trouble?” he said.
The owners are hopeful that future business aid from the state and federal governments may be more expansive than it was this year, and might be usable toward the upgrades that they hope to make by the end of winter, Wisnewski said.
Until then, the plan is to save money during the winter — or, at least, to lose less money — and invest in improvements with an eye toward reopening around the beginning of March.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.